Rates of Pay for High-Ranking Officials

Draft Decision for the C.P.C.[1]

Written:January 2 (15), 1918Published:First published in 1933 inLenin Miscellany XXI.

      Printed from the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      2nd English Edition,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 42,

      page52a.Translated:Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:D. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ReComrade Shlyapnikov’s inquiry concerning rates of pay
for high ranking officials, the C.P.C.

1)confirmsthat the decree establishing 500-ruble monthly salaries for
members of the Council of People’s Commissars is to be interpreted as an
approximate norm for top salaries and contains no prohibition to pay
specialists more;

2)callsattention once more to the fact that the decree of the
C.P.C. contains a demand for revolutionary measures to be taken to reduce
excessively high

salaries;[2]

3)directsall People’s Commissars immediately to report what has been
done in fulfilment of this decree;

4)directsthe Commissar for Finance to submit a report as to whether
resolute measures have been taken to collect income tax and eliminate
evasions in the payment of this tax;

5)directsthe local Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
Deputies to take more energetic measures to collect the special tax on
excessively high incomes.

[1]Thismotion of Lenin’s was adopted at a meeting of the C.P.C.  on
January 2 (15), 1918, during the discussion of an inquiry by
A. G. Shlyapnikov, People’s Commissar for Labour, concerning the rates of
pay for high officials of the factory managements.

[2]Leninis referring to the decree of the C.P.C. of November 18 (December
1), 1917, on “Remuneration for People’s Commissars and High-Ranking Office
Employees and Officials”. The draft of the decree was written by Lenin
(see p. 37 of this volume, and Note No. 7).